I'll define social liberalism here as political correctness, which is the norm in western societies in the 2010s, at least officially. I also have the impression those who call the shots in those (our) societies the ruling class - the pressure groups, the rich - just realized it's an excellent way to hand over that symbolic victory to the lefties. In the meantime, the fat cats reap higher profits than ever, while the lefties are obsessing over "identity politics".

A big part of it is the dominance of identity politics over traditional (i.e. economics- and class-focused) socialism, because the former is a product of the academy, which is inherently bourgeois. So you have all these university-educated leftists who quote Marx but despise the working class as an ignorant racist rabble.

dismissing the "basket of deplorables" as racist, useless idiots. A cop out if I ever saw one.

To be clear, some of them obvious are exactly that, but these are the people who'd have voted for Trump even if he'd "shot someone dead on Fifth Avenue". The damage was done in alienating a lot of people who were probably going to vote for Clinton (or at least were thinking about it) but who in the end either switched to Trump, voted third-party or just stayed at home. Recall that she lost by a margin of some 70k votes in three states.

A comparable thing happened here where so many people on the Remain side made up their minds from the moment the EU referendum was announced that "Leave = racism" and that was that.

I think he's a necessary evil at this time. I don't like him or his methods, but he's brought a lot to light that otherwise wouldn't have been had Clinton come out on top. I also think, as unpleasant as it is, he is representative of America.

With regard to how to deal with him, I'd say just tiptoe round him, remain skeptical and watch what he does rather than what he says. His words have been far more outlandish than his actions. He'll say something, the press will publish a load of pieces saying why it's a bad idea as though he actually plans to do it and he'll be on to the next thing before they finish.